Silent Films

Often when I’m working on a film I’ll turn off the dialogue and sound effects and just enjoy the music with the picture. It’s pleasant to think of an era when this was considered normal. Theaters like the Roxy in New York had house orchestras that put on new concerts every week. Smaller theaters had at least a pianist. Today any live performance to a silent film is a special event.

John M. Davis playing accordion to the film “The Man With a Movie Camera” at the Museum of the Moving Image, Astoria, Queens, February 13, 2016, with Charlie Tokarz on clarinet.

The World’s Greatest Silent Film Band, seen here at the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, Queens. From left: John Mettam, percussion; Mattias Olsson, drums; Donald Sosin, keyboard; Charles Tokarz, flute/clarinet/sax; John M. Davis, keyboard/theremin/accordion

Here is my new silent film rig featuring Native Instruments Maschine as well as my guitar, accordion and theremin.

Here are Donald and I at MOMA on December 1st for the Max Linder performances.

Cruel and Unusual Comedy from the Desmet Collection of the Eye Institute, Amsterdam – Museum of Modern Art, 2011

A Corner in WheatD.W. Grifith, 1908 – GCM Audition

Future Imperfect: The Uncanny in Science Fiction – Museum of Modern Art, August 2017 – with Donald Sosin. Silent films in the series included Georges Méliès’s The Conquest of the Pole (1912), Walter R. Booth’s The Over-Incubated Baby (1901), Buster Keaton’s The Electric House (1922), and Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Vapour (2015)

The GoatBuster Keaton, 1921 – Austria, 2003

The Great Train Robbery Edwin Porter, 1903 – GCM Audition

Koko’s Haunted HouseFleisher, 1928 – GCM Audition

The LodgerAlfred Hitchcock, 1927

The Lure of Crooning WaterArthur Rooke, 1920 – GCM, 2004

The Man With The Movie CameraDziga Vertov, 1929 – with Donald Sosin, Walter Reede Theater, Museum of the Moving Image, 2008 — 2016 with Donald Sosin, John Mettam, Mattias Olsson and Charlie Tokarz at the Museum of the Moving Image.

Manhattan MadnessAlan Dwan, 1916 – GCM 2005

The French Connection & Max Linder, Part One – MOMA, 2018

MetropolisFritz Lang, 1927 – Austria, 2002

One WeekBuster Keaton, 1920 – Austria 2003

The WindVictor Sjöström, 1928 – GCM Audition

The Vengeance of a Sergeant

This is my score that was performed by an octet at MOMA in 2011. Unfortunately I don’t have a recording of that performance, so we’ll have to make do with the demo.

Le Giornate Del Cinema Muto

The Giornate Del Cinema Muto, also known as the Pordenone Silent Film Festival, is the largest and most prestigious silent film festival in the world. In October of 2004 I was selected to be a part of the “School of Music to Image,” which was a series of master classes taught by Neil Brand and Donald Sosin. On the last day of the program I performed an improvised score, sight unseen, to the film The Lure of Crooning Water in front of a large audience. The next year I returned with a sextet to perform a prepared score to Manhattan Madness.